


Ignore the Details

by EmptySurface



Category: One Piece
Genre: AU, Captain is a gender, Fem!Luffy, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, I basically spite wrote this, Makino is Trying Her Best, Mistaken Gender, Mugiwara no Ichimi | Straw Hat Pirates, Nakamaship, Zoro: long-suffering Crew Councillor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22259620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmptySurface/pseuds/EmptySurface
Summary: Where Luffy was born a girl and it didn't make that much of a difference.
Comments: 63
Kudos: 1408





	Ignore the Details

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this ages ago and finally touched it up and decided to post, so... enjoy!

When Luffy was three, Makino tried to put her in a dress. Luffy didn't pay her clothes so much as a glance before rushing out to play. When she returned two hours later, the pretty little yellow sundress looked more brown and was in unsalvageable tatters.

Luffy's hair had been looking like a bird's nest, complete with twigs, feathers and leaves and her knees had been scrubbed bloody.

When questioned about what had happened, Luffy had merely blinked uncomprehending up at Makino and said she'd been playing.

Makino had given the little girl a strained smile and the next day, she'd dressed her in shorts and a t-shirt. At least the clothes had been whole when Luffy came back after that, even if their state made Makino marvel at how one such small girl could get anything so filthy.

A week later, she was forced to cut Luffy's hair short because of the clumps of tree-sap sticking the black strands together.

Makino mourned the loss, but didn't say anything since Luffy didn't mind. And she had to be honest enough to admit that it made bath-time easier; she always found twigs and leaves when she attempted to brush the little girl's hair out.

It all made it very easy for the villagers to forget that Luffy was not, in fact, a little boy.

The last traces of that knowledge seemed to disappear with the arrival of the Red-Hair pirates when Luffy was five.

Shanks and Luffy instantly clicked, and Makino was terrified, until she saw the two interact. Shanks was acting like an older brother to Luffy, treating the little girl like family.

After the year was up, after all the drama the pirates had attracted -naturally with Luffy in the middle of it all- Makino realised with growing horror that she hadn't even thought to inform the captain that Luffy was female. Feeling guilty, and slightly ashamed of herself, Makino had approached the girl, asking Luffy if she was sad that everyone thought she was a boy and if she was angry with her for it.

"Does it matter?" Luffy had replied, quite bluntly, blinking her large eyes up at her.

And Makino could admit she had a point, and she didn't have the heart to tell Luffy how most of the world viewed women.

Especially when Luffy began to scream out her dream to become the Pirate King.

As far as the village of Foosha was concerned after that, Luffy was a little boy who wanted to become a pirate and had eaten a Devil Fruit.

The next time Garp came by the island and heard of Luffy's new dream, he took his grandchild away to live with mountain bandits, and Makino worriedly watched them go, wondering if not Garp too had forgotten that the small child he was carrying was a girl.

-o-o-o-

  
  


The first time Ace met Luffy, he thought she was the most pathetic little _boy_ he had ever laid eyes on. Dim-witted, naive, with the attention-span of a concussed puppy and _so_ irritating!

That he couldn't get rid of the kid was just icing on the cake.

A week into their reluctant acquaintance, Ace was forced to add 'stubborn' and 'lack of self-preservation' to that list.

The incident with Bluejam made Ace and Sabo realise that Luffy wasn't completely useless. It resulted in the inclusion of the -still presumed- boy into their small group.

Luffy couldn't have been happier, running around the jungle, Grey Terminal and High Town with them, eagerly wreaking havoc in their wake.

Swearing to become brothers was the easiest thing Ace had ever done.

"YOU'RE A GIRL!?" Ace and Sabo did eventually find out, during bath-time.

In Ace's opinion, it was lucky none of the bandit's heard their shocked exclamations, though he suspected Dadan already knew.

"Yeah." Luffy had blinked confusedly at them, tilting her head as if she couldn't understand what the big deal was. And to Luffy, there was no difference between boys and girls, and brother or sister, she'd still be their sibling no matter what.

Sabo and Ace could do nothing but splutter. "B-But, But-"

"Girls s-shouldn't-!" Sabo managed to choke out, but before he had finished, Luffy gained a mulish expression and coming as close to glaring as either boy had ever seen her.

Then, all at once, they remembered they were all naked, and blushing brighter than a lighthouse, they abruptly left Luffy to finish her bath alone.

Luffy looked after them with a frown, but didn't dwell on it.

It was by silent agreement that Ace and Sabo decided to treat Luffy exactly as they already had up to this point, but they swore to keep an extra close eye on their little 'brother' from then on.

Thinking on it for the next couple of hours, they both agreed that it was best for everyone involved that Luffy remained viewed as a boy.

Little brother or little sister, it couldn't be _that_ big of a difference, right?

-o-o-o-

  
  


When Luffy turned fourteen, Makino began to get concerned at her lack of development.

When she brought her concerns to the village doctor, the man looked confused for a long moment, before he was overcome by an embarrassed blush.

"Ah... Erm, Luffy-kun's eaten a Devil Fruit," the doctor reminded her, making Makino blink.

"And that matters?" she asked, bewildered.

In the end, they made no real headway, because the doctor hadn't ever met a Devil Fruit user outside of Luffy, so he couldn't compare. And if the differences between Fruits were as diverse as he'd heard, then he wasn't sure it would help either way.

In the end, Makino walked up to the mountain bandit's lair and sat Luffy down for a talk.

She had to shoo Ace away three times before she bluntly told him what she was going to speak with Luffy about and then watched as Ace left, face bright red as he disappeared into the forest faster than she had imagined possible.

It was difficult to get Luffy to sit still for more than two minutes, and she doubted the girl truly listened to what she said, but Makino ploughed on, divulging the secrets behind basic female hygiene.

As expected, it didn't stick, and Luffy was out the door the moment Makino released her.

-o-o-o-

  
  


When Luffy was fifteen, Ace left on his journey to become a pirate.

He almost stayed behind, because Luffy seriously needed someone to look after her. But in the end, the ocean was calling and they both had a promise to live up to.

Sabo might not be with them any more, but Ace intended to have enough adventures for the both of them.

When he later got his tattoo, those were the thoughts that filled his head. (He later regretted it just a little, when pretty much everyone he met thought it was a misspelling and laughed their asses off and wouldn't stop until he beat them into the ground.)

Luffy, on her part, stayed behind, feeling alone, but she made do.

She'd been alone before.

She roamed the forest and determinedly worked to get stronger; she was going to beat Ace the next time she met him.

-o-o-o-

  
  


A year later, at sixteen, Luffy bled for the first time.

Remembering the talk Makino had had with her some two years prior, but not sure what exactly had been said, Luffy headed down to Foosha village.

She walked into Makino's bar and told the woman she was bleeding.

The customers present looked confused and began to mutter about band-aids and bandages, but Makino grew pale as a sheet, and then bright red before she ushered Luffy into the back rooms, scolding her for talking about such private matters in front of others. Particularly men!

Luffy didn't understand, but promised not to do it again when Makino prompted her.

The entire incident was solved quickly, and Makino informed Luffy that she should expect this once every month.

Luffy was _dismayed_ , but realised that there wasn't anything she could do but pout.

Which she did for an entire day.

Before she returned to Dadan's house, Makino informed her she was a very late bloomer, and that it was most likely because she was made of rubber.

The woman also attempted to console Luffy on her complete lack of a chest, something that went entirely over Luffy's head.

-o-o-o-

  
  


When Luffy set out at the age of seventeen for her own adventures, Makino watched worriedly from the shore. Waving her off.

Luffy acted more like an unruly boy, and looked the part, but she worried. The sea was a harsh place, doubly so for women.

But there wasn't anything she could do other than pray and hope for the best.

-o-o-o-

  
  


Zoro realised his new Captain was female a few days into their acquaintance.

He'd fished the idiotic anchor out of the sea six times in half as many days, and Luffy automatically took off her shirt to let it dry in the morning sun.

Zoro was glaring at the idiot, because what kind of Devil Fruit user merely laughed at falling into the sea?

He glared at her and despite her slender build, the well defined muscles and the complete lack of breasts, there was still something about it that niggled in the back of his head and made Zoro wonder.

So he asked her.

"Are you male?" he grunted, blunt as ever.

"Nope." Luffy sounded unconcerned, busy wringing out excess saltwater out of her shorts and not even looking up.

Zoro huffed, but was satisfied to have found out what was feeling off.

So he lied back down to sleep, hoping Luffy would _stay_ _out_ of the water this time.

Luffy was his captain, and he learned long ago that females were far from weak; he'd seen Luffy fight, and Kuina could kick his ass without even trying.

As long as Luffy kept her promise not to get in the way of Zoro's dream, he would call her Captain.

He honestly couldn't care less about what she had between the legs.

Luffy forgot about the exchange within the day, still ecstatic that she'd found her first crew-member.

Her great adventure had finally begun!

-o-o-o-

  
  


The next crew-member to find out about Luffy's gender was Usopp.

Sometime after he joined the Straw-Hats, Luffy dragged the boy with her to the bathroom on the Going Merry after dinner. It'd been a long day and they could all do with a good wash.

Zoro eyed Usopp critically, much to the boy's confusion, because he knew this wasn't going to go over as smoothly as it might.

It was abundantly clear that Luffy didn't care about gender, and someone had to keep an eye on the idiot to make sure she didn't drown in the tub.

The three strolled into the bath, got undressed and set to scrubbing off the day's sweat and grime.

It wasn't until Luffy got up to climb into the bathtub that Usopp noticed anything strange, and when he looked up to get an eyeful of a naked, decidedly _not_ male Luffy, he froze.

A second later, he was blushing so dark Zoro was half afraid he might pop a blood vessel.

Usopp let out a scream that made Luffy press her palms over her ears, and then promptly fainted.

Luffy blinked at him, slowly lowering her hands again, before she turned to Zoro.

"What's wrong with him?" she demanded, pointing at Usopp's lifeless form on the floor.

Zoro snorted. "Beats me," he said, then got up, grabbed Luffy by the scruff of her neck and tossed her into the water before he followed. He wanted his damn bath.

When Usopp finally woke up, Luffy was long gone, having raced off to claim her favourite seat on top of Merry's figurehead the second she was done bathing and Zoro had booted her out of the water.

Zoro had remained behind to do damage control.

"What the hell was that!?" Usopp demanded, voice a high-pitched squeak and looking half-terrified and half-mortally embarrassed.

"Luffy."

"But Luffy's a _he_!" Usopp hissed, pulling at his hair. "And she can't just take baths with us!" he added frantically not a second later, not even registering that some part of him had already accepted the truth. "It's not- not proper!" he stumbled slightly over the words, because honestly, when had Luffy ever been _proper_?

Zoro gave him the unimpressed look that that deserved and stood up. "Luffy's still Captain. Can do whatever she wants. And someone has to make sure the idiot doesn't drown."

"But why can't _Nami_ be that person!?" Usopp practically wailed.

Zoro raised a sceptical eyebrow and clearly even Usopp heard how absurd that sounded.

Zoro wasn't even sure Nami had figured it out yet, and he wasn't about to help her.

It wasn't any of his business anyway, and he didn't trust the navigator completely yet.

He wouldn't question Luffy's decision, though, so Zoro merely observed from the side-lines for now.

"It's not up to you or me to decide," he said, before he left Usopp alone to contemplate what it all meant.

Usopp stared after Zoro for a moment, before he realised he hadn't soaked in the bath yet, and took his time to mull everything over in the warm water.

Did it really matter that Luffy wasn't a boy as he thought? Luffy hadn't lied to him, exactly, Usopp had simply assumed... And he was certain Luffy would tell him the truth if he were to ask; Luffy was a hopelessly horrible liar.

In the end, he figured he was too grateful to Luffy for saving his island from Kuro and they were already friends.

Zoro's words stuck with him, too, so Usopp didn't change the way he treat Luffy, and even kept calling her a 'he'. That wasn't so much a conscious choice as it was habit and convenience, though.

It just happened.

After a few days together on the ship, Usopp already considered Luffy his best friend, the best one he'd ever had, almost a broth- er, sister, and he couldn't help but look forward to when Nami finally figured it all out.

Because it was more than obvious to the liar that the money-obsessed girl _hadn't_.

When Sanji joined them and Nami left, Usopp and Zoro exchanged one single look and unanimously decided not to tell the perverted cook about Luffy's gender. That was one disaster waiting to happen that they didn't want to deal with just yet.

They had other things to focus on, anyway.

Bath-time continued to be right after dinner, when Sanji coincidentally was busy cleaning up his kitchen.

-o-o-o-

  
  


The only Straw-Hat crew-member that immediately realised that Luffy was female was Chopper.

That wasn't so much a realization as it was his sensitive nose giving the girl away.

When Chopper met Luffy for the first time, she was unconscious, suffering from severe frostbite after climbing up the mountain to get to Doctorine's castle.

With her was a woman with a high fever and symptoms of a sickness that should have been extinct.

Chopper, still feeling shocked that anyone was crazy enough to actually _climb_ the steep cliff-side, took a quick glance over the edge and then carried his new patients inside.

It would take quite a while for him to realise that not everyone else knew that Luffy was a she.

In fact, he didn't realise it for weeks. It may have been because he was a reindeer, or because he was a monster, or even because he was a doctor, but Chopper never knew why gender was so important to begin with. Outside of a medical file, or certain kinds of treatments, gender made no great difference.

Of course, females carried offspring, but other than that…

That thought had Chopper running around in panicked circles for a full minute before he could calm himself down, telling himself that Luffy would _not_ spawn anytime soon. (If ever.)

He resolved the issue entirely by going to Zoro.

“Doesn’t really make a difference,” the swordsman grunted in between lifting his weights, looking entirely unsurprised.

Chopper gnawed anxiously on one hoof.

“But she’s-“

“The captain,” Zoro interrupted with a glance.

When Chopper thought about it, he supposed it was true, but he had been under the impression that humans put a lot of stock in gender. Not that he’d ever understood why.

There were a lot of things he didn’t understand when it came to humans.

In the end, Chopper screwed up his courage and went to Luffy when she was sitting on Merry’s head, staring out over the ocean ahead of them. For once, the ship was silent and peaceful; Nami was locked in her rooms, drawing maps, and Usopp was tinkering with something in his corner.

Zoro was napping and Sanji was preparing dinner in the kitchen.

“U-Um, Luffy?” Chopper asked weakly, only to for the young human woman to grin widely at him. “Does it bother you? Everyone treating you like a male member of your species?”

“Nope,” Luffy chirped and then snickered, as if Chopper had said something funny. “I don't care!” she added easily.

Well.

“I'm your doctor, so if you have any questions, just come ask me, okay?” Chopper told her, not sure what else to say.

...maybe he should read up some extra on female anatomy. He should look for more medical books in the next port they made.

Nodding to himself, Chopper was satisfied with the conversation and entirely occupied with plans for the future.

He had to be prepared! He was the doctor!

-o-o-o-


End file.
